"I've gotten myself into quite a situation," he said over the car phone to Judy Hammer.

"Andy, do you have any idea what time it is?" said Hammer, who had been sound asleep when her phone had startled her back into this world. "You sound very discouraged. What happened?"

Once again, Andy happened to be close to Hammer's Church Hill neighborhood, and she suggested that he drop by at the precise moment Fonny Boy decided to drop by the clinic and check on Dr. Sherman Faux, who was shivering blindly in the folding chair.

"Lord, I ask you for a miracle. Not a big one. Just one tiny miracle," Dr. Faux was praying. "Maybe a spare angel could drop by and get me out of here. I promise I'll move quickly and not take unnecessary time, because I know there are so many people and animals who need Your help far more than I do. But I can't do anybody any good as long as I'm tied up here on this island. And I'm stiff and getting sore in this metal chair. So just one angel, that's all I ask. For maybe an hour or two-however long it takes to get me back to the mainland."

Fonny Boy listened attentively without being detected, because he had known since birth not to make sudden movements that might alert fish and crabs that they were about to be caught. Crabs especially were very wily and had excellent vision. If one didn't keep the wire pot perfectly clean, then the crab wouldn't be able to see all the way through it and would get suspicious as to why a piece of rotten fish was inside a box-shaped tangle of eel grass. Fonny Boy kept the family crab pots impeccably clean and could be as silent as a butterfly when necessary.

He would make the dentist think that God was intervening and answering his prayer, when the truth was, Fonny Boy wanted to take Dr. Faux up on his offer of employment on the mainland. Fonny Boy got up and made not a sound as he left the storeroom, then turned around and walked back inside and shut the door so the dentist could hear him enter.

"Who's there?" Dr. Faux said with hope. "That you, Fonny Boy?"

"Yass."

"Oh, thank God. I'm cold and need to go home, Fonny Boy. How's your tooth? The lidocaine wear off?"

"Yass."

"What about the cotton you swallowed? Any problems with that?"

"Yea!" he talked backward, meaning he'd had no problem yet. "I'll carry you ashore," he added. "There's neither time to get the spyglass and searchlight offer my daddy, and it's right airish out, and you don't have a coat. But we need to scud along now afore all the bateaus head out to fish-up the pots!"

"I don't care about a coat, and we can certainly make do without binoculars or a flashlight!" the dentist exclaimed with joy.

He had tears in his eyes, although Fonny Boy could not see them because of the brackish-smelling bandanna that was still tied around the dentist's head. All these years the dentist had been reimbursed for working or pretending to work on that boy's mouth, and never once had it occurred to Dr. Faux that Fonny Boy was an angel.

"God bless you, son," Dr. Faux whispered as they silently made their way out of the clinic.

"Shhhh," Fonny Boy warned him. "Keep quite."

The island's streets were deserted and dark, and there wasn't a light on in a single house as every Islander slept soundly and golf carts recharged. But Fonny Boy knew that soon enough it would be 3:00 A.M. and the watermen would be heading out to their bateaus, so he and the dentist had best hurry along. If Fonny Boy got caught rescuing Dr. Faux, there would be trouble. For sure, Fonny Boy's mother would march him straightaway to Swain Memorial United Methodist Church, and she would rat on him to Reverend Crockett. Fonny Boy had been in trouble with Reverend Crockett before, and was sick and tired of memorizing Scripture to pay for his sins.

The family bateau was docked only several blocks from the church, and with every step, the silhouette of the church steeple seemed to watch Fonny Boy and follow him. The people of Tangier were God-fearing, and disobedience to one's parents was not tolerated. Although Fonny Boy might be an angel to Dr. Faux, Fonny Boy was openly disobeying his father and mother by sneaking out of the house and letting the dentist go. Furthermore, when Fonny Boy's father arrived to putter out to the crab pots, he would have no means of doing so and would be extremely out of sorts because of his missing bateau.

As Fonny Boy and the dentist descended rickety wooden steps leading down to the bateaus, Fonny Boy worried aloud and nonstop. He was having second thoughts and was terrified to go down that last step, which would surely lead to an entirely new, scary world. The dentist tried to comfort Fonny Boy by telling him that he was feeling the same way the men and boys had felt in December, 1606 as they'd filed down the Black-wall stairs on the Isle of Dogs and boarded the ships. Little Richard Mutton of St. Bride, London, was only fourteen, the same age as Fonny Boy, and no doubt froze on the bottom step, too.

"His family, was they with him?" Fonny Boy whispered.

"Little Richard was the only Mutton on the list of settlers, at least that we know of."

"Then what for did he do it?" Fonny Boy whispered as he imagined Richard Mutton all alone and shivering in the dark as he stared out at three tiny ships that were going to sail all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to an unknown, dangerous world.

"Gold," Dr. Faux replied. "The little Mutton boy, like most of our country's first settlers, felt sure they would find gold or at least silver, just like the Spanish were in the West Indies. And of course, they would be assigned great parcels of land so they could begin farming."

"Who learned you all this?" Fonny Boy asked in awe.

"Some of it was in Trooper Truth the morning before you kidnapped me. And I've always loved Virginia history."

Lights were beginning to fill windows in the small houses across the island, and Fonny Boy jumped into his father's bateau and began to imagine gold and treasure as they sped through the bay in the pitch dark. It would have been a good idea for him to have checked out how much gas was onboard and perhaps brought along an auxiliary tank or two for the hour-and-a-half voyage. As it was, they were five miles west of Tangier and inside restricted area R 6609 when the outboard motor began to hiccup and sputter just before it quit.

"Oh, no," Dr. Faux said as he began to fear that God hadn't answered his prayer after all, but had merely thrown him into worse trouble to punish him for his fraudulent life. "What do we do now, Fonny Boy?"

Every waterman kept a flare gun in his bateau, but Fonny Boy couldn't possibly resort to that because he could not be rescued by his own people and then face the unthinkable punishment that would await him for running away with the dentist. He was also mindful of the military restricted areas all around the island and wasn't sure it was a good idea to shoot something up into the air. What if the military shot back?

"You think the current will eventually drift us to Reedville?" Dr. Faux asked as frigid air began to work its way through his inadequate clothing.

"Nah," Fonny Boy replied.

He began digging around in the various compartments in the bateau, moving aside rope, a rusty pocket knife, several bottles of water, and mosquito repellent, which the dentist used liberally, even though it was too cold for insects to be on the prowl. The compartment under the pilot's seat was secured with a padlock, and Fonny Boy tried to conjure up the combination. Anything of true value, including the flare gun, would be inside that compartment, and although he wasn't certain, he was hopeful that his father might have left the handheld radio in there instead of taking it home.